Nikki

Ha! Consultant! That's their job - to document, criticise and, ultimately, cock-up. cf a chef vs a food critic, playwright vs critic, artist vs art critic, cat vs a flea, bowel vs a tape-worm.

I *did* go the full nine yards university degree route, learned all that stuff, loads on documenting a system before and as developing, but in the real world one doesn't always have the time to do all, and usually a boss patient and generous enough to pay you for that period.

IMHO putting good comments in your code as you go along, writing meaningful names and functions, etc, (eg lnRecordCount vs XX) goes a long, long way.

functional analysis and program analysis? You gotta ask first who is gonna read it and when. And if they do, who ever will again?

As for user manual: Well, if as you say, all hands in the company know the system, and they're the users, what's the point? If it's for others then I'd approve. As a matter of fact, that's just what I'm doing at the moment.

My two penn'orth

Terry


>i hv been a progrmmer for a few years most of it self taught, no fancy college stuff. recently our company hired a consultant and he was surprised that i hv not yet created a
>
>functional analysis
>program analysis
>user manual
>
>of the program
>
>and a lot of other stuff,
>
>we only have 5 employees in our company, everyone knows the program inside out.
>
>my question here is
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>1. how important are these things and what are these things (except the user manual which i understand)
>
>2. is the consultant just trying to impress my boss
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>3. what other documentations are there which are necessary to be done along with the program?
>
>4. where do i get to learn all this stuff?
>
>any help is welcome
>
>thanks